Tova Friedman was born in September 1938 in Gdynia, Poland, a suburb of Danzig.  Her family came from Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Poland and they returned there as soon as the war broke out.  Tova’s father, Machel, recalled that he was shocked at the devastation. The 15 thousand Jews were cramped into six 4-story buildings unable to leave without special permission. Together with Tova’s mother Reizel, they lived with Tova’s grandparents and many other people in tight quarters with the children sleeping and eating under the table. Starvation, shootings and deportation soon decreased the population. Those that managed to survive were packed into trains and shipped off to Nazi labor camps and a few  were kept as the cleanup squad. Tova held her mother’s hand as she and her father picked up the corpses and brought them to the communal grave.

Tova’s next destination was Starachowice where her parents worked at an ammunition factory while the children roamed the streets careful not to get shot by the armed soldiers in the 4 towns surrounding the camp. When the children’s selections came, Tova watched from her hiding place as all the remaining children disappeared. 

From there, Tova was sent to the Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp Auschwitz Birkenau. At 5-1/2 years Tova’s head was shaved and her new name “A-27633” was tattooed on her arm. There, she survived hunger, disease and a trip to the gas chamber. Tova’s mother’s ingenuity, however, saved her when instead of going on the death march they both hid themselves with corpses and lived to experience the liberation of Auschwitz, by the Russians on January 27, 1945. 

Tova has been sharing her story with students and audiences at public and private schools, at colleges and places of worship, as well as prisons. She came to the US with her parents at age 12 and received her Bachelors of Arts degree in psychology from Brooklyn College, a Master of Arts in Black literature from City College of New York and her Master of Arts in Social Work from Rutgers University. Tova taught at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was Director of Jewish Family Service of Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren Counties for over 20 years. She still works there as a therapist. Tova was married to Maier Friedman for 60 years and has 4 children and 8 grandchildren.